“I decided to republish a blog post of mine from 2015. Originally an article I wrote for my friend Joe Vitale. Details below. I publish it as it was way back when and as it was in 2015. I think I’ll share a few more that follow this theme because of its value. Much of this comes from realizations I had in the late seventies and early eighties. I began teaching workshops and spreading the word then. It’s gone round the world. Good!”
“An important area of my work since 1980 has been in the area of how questions direct the mind, the thinker, and how they can be used more effectively than affirmations. I have included an article I wrote on using questions when you write articles or emails. It contains powerful information you can use in your daily life to make positive lasting changes. Whether you are interested in writing or not I suggest you read it.
Since I began my work and shared it in articles, seminars, and home study programs, countless numbers of people have used my approach to get wonderful results personally and professionals. This is marvelous and I feel grateful and happy that people have truly benefited around the world.
A few others have piggy backed on my efforts and helped spread the concept. Credited or not, I am always happy if people are getting good results and value from anything I have shared, whether or not I am the one sharing it.
Here is an article I wrote for the newsletter of my friend ‘Mr. Fire’ Joe Vitale (seen in The Secret). I share it here because I think it can help you in many ways. It is NOT just about writing but about directing your brain in ways that are most useful and effective. Enjoy!
‘How Can Questions Make Your Writing More Hypnotic?
by Rex Steven Sikes
Copyright for this article is owned by Rex Steven Sikes. It’s used here with his permission.
Did you know there are actually three languages inside the English language? That’s right, at least three!
There is the language of pictures or how things appear, how we see or view them in our mind as well as out there in the real world.
Second, there is the language of sounds or what we say to ourselves and what we hear on the inside.
And third there is the language of feelings, like when something wonderful grabs hold of us and makes us feel warm and special inside.
Knowing the three languages and incorporating them into your hypnotic writing makes your appeals even more powerful. Words like “paint, picture, imagine, bright, dim, flash,” are visual words. Words that convey sound or auditory information are words like “discuss, hear, harmony, tell, say to yourself”. And words that help us feel things are words like “warm, cold, shudder, feel, grasp, walk through, get a hold of, heart to heart”.
By spicing up your writing with these words you help others begin to imagine more clearly what you are saying because you appeal to at least three of our five senses. And that’s a tasty thing to do that will spice up your writing and make it more vivid to the people who are reading your work.
But that’s not all there is. There is something even more incredible, that directs the human mind to pay attention. Do you know what that is?
Not yet, but I have just given you some great examples. It is the power of questions. You see questions direct the mind. That is true whether you are asking a question of yourself or another person.
Perhaps you say “Yeah, who says?” See there, you just asked a question! And the incredible thing is that this is what our brains are designed to do: Ask and answer questions posed to it and find solutions and new behaviors.
Brains love questions! That’s what brains do all day long. They go in search of things they can do that make life more interesting. Your brains already know how to search for and find information. The key is learning how to use questions to direct your mind in powerful and positive ways.
The problem with most people is that they already use questions to get results they don’t want. They ask things like ‘Why do bad things always happen to me?’ or ‘How come I never do anything right?’ or ‘How come others always get ahead?’ or ‘Why am I so stupid?’
And guess what? Your brain knows exactly where to go in your personal history to find the answers. What your brain does is go on a search, and then comes back with things like ‘Well, it’s because you stuck your head in the toaster when you were four years old’, or ‘You didn’t have the right kind of teachers, or parents,’ or ‘Bad things always happen to good people’.
You see, it is automatic. Ask a question of the brain and it answers in a great variety of ways. In fact the brain keeps on working on the questions long after the answers start being delivered. You know how that is, don’t you? You certainly do if you ever experienced that critical voice that keeps ragging and nagging on you long into the night.
Would you like to find a way to end that? Would you like to be able to direct your mind in powerful, positive ways? Do you want to be more influential and positively persuasive in person—and in your writing?
The key to having more wonderful things happen within you is to help the brain help you by redirecting what it already does well. If instead of asking questions like the negative ones above, we learn to instead begin asking questions about how wonderful things are, then the brain has a positive direction to follow.
And by focusing our attention on what we want instead of what we don’t want our brains can help deliver the good things to us. There is a rule that states, ‘What you focus on you get.’ So if you are focused on negative questions and negative things, the brain goes “okay I can deliver that”.
The brain isn’t biased. Good or bad, it just does what it knows. So we need to grab hold of it and utilize it to our advantage by redirecting it and then letting it run.
For example, you ask this instead: ‘I wonder how soon before I begin to realize how talented I am?’ or ‘I wonder how quickly I can realize how fortunate I am?’ or ‘How delighted will I be to discover my powers of persuasion increasing rapidly?’
You see, when you direct your mind to what you want, your brain says, ‘I don’t know the answer but I’ll go and find out.’ And that is the key! You ask a question which sends your brain in the direction of what is positive that you want to have, but to which you don’t know the answer yet.
If you are familiar at all with powerful hypnotic languaging, you will already notice the kinds of useful hypnotic language patterns I use in these questions. If not, well then be happy there is more for you to learn which will help improve what you do. (See the http://www.idea-seminars.com.)
The incredible thing is your brain already knows exactly what to do. For example, if I ask you “Where did you get the shirt you are wearing as you read this?” Your brain probably knows what store, when, where, or that it was a gift. It won’t answer me by telling me you were abducted by aliens when you were a teenager or some other kind of frivolous answer.
It knows how to go after the class of information you present it with. And realize that I directed your mind with a question to the kind of information I was after. If others were listening to us as we spoke, their minds would be directed to where you got your shirt, as well. This is powerful to know although it may seem obvious.
So the key for your own personal improvement is asking yourself questions which lead your mind in useful directions. If you want positive results, you ask something like ‘How soon can I begin to discover the wonderful results I am already getting? And as I begin to notice those how many more can I discover that delight and amaze me?’ You would do the same if you were talking to, or writing to, another person.
Now let’s say you are selling another person a pen. And you ask, ‘Want to buy my pen?’ The person obviously can answer with ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Because the question you asked didn’t lead to further exploration. It lead only to a single “I want it” or “I don’t.”
But notice if you ask ‘Do you know how delighted you will be when you buy my pen?’ You aren’t directly asking them to buy it. (Well, in fact you are using another hypnotic pattern known as embedded commands). You are focusing them on something they can’t yet know the answer to: And that is the amount of delight they may experience.
I call this Mental Aikido. You side-step the issue of buying by focusing them on a positive attribute of owning the pen: the delight. So they can say ‘no, I don’t know how delighted I will be,’ in which case you have a door open to go ahead and demonstrate it for them. Or they say ‘Yes I know how delighted I will be,’ and then they go to buy it. Or they give you further information that would be necessary for you to know to go ahead and make the sale. Any which way you cut it, you now have a powerful tool in your hands to help you influence and sell. Follow?
You can influence others by directing your own brain! In fact, when you learn how to direct your own brain and use its already existing features in a user friendly way, you will enjoy more influence, power and happiness in your life. That’s because you turn your brain into a powerful ally. And you certainly would want to do that, don’t you?
While this method of Directed Questions™ is something I teach for incredible personal power and life enhancement, I thought you might be interested in a strategy for being able to get your readers to really respond to your hypnotic writing. So here is something else you can use to really add to your hypnotic writing abilities:
These next questions are ones to ask yourself to help you become more creative and begin to be able to paint word pictures for others, so they can readily see what it is you are talking about, so that they more readily feel like going ahead with what you propose.
The brain and eyes are wired together. This means that when we move our eyes we access certain portions of our brain. When we look up we mostly access the visual portions of the brain. When we look laterally side to side or down left we mostly access the auditory portions of our brain. When we look down to the right we mostly access the kinesthetic or feeling portions of our brain. We actually access more than just these areas but we access these areas in greater portions when we move our eyes in this manner. Hence, we can learn to move our eyes systematically to gain greater access to the wonderful information stored in our brain.
Step 1. Look up (don’t move your head, just your eyes) and say ‘What do I want to show my readers?’ ‘What is it I want them to see clearly and how can I best get them to picture that in their mind?’ Spend a few seconds entertaining that question while looking up, entertaining how you can help your reader picture in their mind what it is you want them to see.
Step 2. Now move your eyes down to the left and ask ‘What is it I want them to say to themselves as they read it?’ and ‘How best can I tell them what it is I what them to really pay attention to?’ Again spend a few seconds in your own mind entertaining how you can best help your readers say those things to themselves that you would want them to say as they read your writing.
Step 3. Now move your eyes down right and ask ‘What is it I want them to feel as the read my writing?’ and ‘How best can I get them to have these feelings?’ And spend a few moments getting a grasp of what you want them to feel as they progress through your written material.
Once you have asked those questions, now take a short break and do something else for a little while. Let your unconscious mind work on it. I used to go watch TV and get caught up in a show. But soon I would find the wheels start churning, and I would hop over to the typewriter (in those days) and begin writing. Things began to flow.
If ever I got stuck, I simply asked the questions again and took another break. Later I would go back and edit and re-write the paper to polish it. But this unlocked the creative juices in a very particular and powerful way.
You ask yourself how you can show them in your writing, tell them and get them to feel in your writing. You can additionally ask ‘What is it I really need to say to get them to buy? What do they really need to know? How can I best word my letter to really get my points across? How soon can I find the words and ideas flowing through me in a way that amazes and delights me?’
Or ask any variation of those questions that leads you to the results you want. Then take a break and let your unconscious mind go to work. But remember to come back to the project after your unconscious has had a little time to work on it for you. Often I found that once, maybe two or three times, were necessary to get it the way I really wanted it.
Remember you want your reader to be able to picture themselves using your product. You want them to imagine what it would be like to have it or to miss out on it. You want to paint vivid detail in the mind’s eye of your reader to help them to have the feelings of wanting, desire, or need for your product. Or to feel that’s enough to stop whatever they are currently doing and follow through on what your proposal is.
You want them to say ‘yes’ inside their head and hear positive sounds and voices as they read through your letter. Yeah this is great, this makes sense, wow I can do this yes. And you want them to have the feelings of desire, certainty and taking action. You really want to take them by the hand and walk them through this process. Combine this with your other hypnotic writing skills and you become a real powerhouse.
So remember to ask the questions which direct your mind to what you want your reader to see, hear and feel. Direct your reader to what you want to be able to show them, tell them and help make them feel. You do this by using questions to direct your mind to what you need to pay attention to first in order to influence some body else.
By previewing in your mind what you need them to see, hear and say, and feel to themselves, you can begin to paint pictures with your words that will get them excited about your product or service in a way that makes them feel they have to have it.
And this truly is hypnotic, isn’t it?
Joe ‘Mr Fire’ Vitale Newsletter link:
Copyright Rex Steven Sikes IDEA Seminars 2000 If you’d like to learn more about directing your mind for success using Directed Questions™ and Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) go to IDEA Seminars website http://www.idea-seminars.com for home study products. Currently, it’s also www.rexsikes.com
NOTE: I returned to college in the 80’s. I don’t feel I am any smarter than anyone else. I listened to my professors for the sensory language they used most often, and I noticed how they moved their eyes and gestured while they spoke or thought about a question they were asked.
THEN I wrote my term research and term papers, and answered my essay tests questions utilizing what I had noticed, using the words the professor seemed to prefer. I attribute this practice as the one that took me from a D- student to an A student. I LITERALLY learned to speak their language.
I’d get notes on my papers like ‘You clearly see how this is important’ or “You have a great grasp on the material’ or “I liked the tone of your discussion’. As I said, I’m no smarter I just learned how to better communicate with people who are important. Aren’t there areas and people in your life where doing similarly would be useful?
If I can learn to benefit in this way you can too! Wouldn’t it be wonderful to transform your life in simple yet powerful ways by learning a few new things? I’m sure it would be, don’t you? AND I wonder how delighted you will be to discover yourself having an amazing day, today? Right? Because you can. Celebrate everything!” Rex Sikes
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